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Edward Sutton's memories of life in Retford in the mid-19th century have given us a vivid and amusing look at what it was really like back then.

He had a regular column in the Retford Times during the 1910s when he would use his remarkable memory to conjure images of the characters who he knew and the customs of a time when he was a younger man, writing as he did at the age of 80 in 1913.

This time we will look at his recollections of chimney sweeps, amusing fashion and police in top hats and tails.

"Newspapers in those days could not be purchased for the humble "brown," none being published under threepence per copy," he wrote.

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Police uniforms had changed significantly from the top hat and tails look on the 1850s. This is an officer in Retford taken in 1870. (Image: Bassetlaw Museum)

"The was a Government stamp, in red ink, upon the corner of every one issued, there was a tax upon paper, and there was also a tax upon advertisements, so that the publishers of newspapers were handicapped in every way.

"Policemen wore white trousers, swallow-tailed coats and top hats, the crowns of which were covered in some glazed material, a strip of the same running up each side.

"The women-folk, as soon as they had entered the state of matrimony, saw it to be a duty to at once don a net cap upon their heads, with a goffered lace border in the front.

"My own mother wore one of these until the day of her death, which occurred 33 years ago.

"Crinolines, too, were in fashion, and to such width of rotundity did they attain that it was an amusing sight to see some of the wearers attempting to enter through an ordinary doorway.

Group portrait of a man, woman and children. Unidentified. Taken about 1860. (Image: Bassetlaw Museum)

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"And chimneys were swept by climbing boys, who, when they had got to the top thereof, gave a 'ran, tan, tan' with their brush, and then put their head outside that the householder might both hear and see that they had fully accomplished their task.

"And this continued until the advent of the machine-brush, which could do the work as at present by the addition of rod to rod to propel it further upwards.

"Seventy years is a long period to look back in any person's life, yet my memory is fairly alive with most of which pertained thereto.

"I was a scholar in the West Retford Baptist Sunday School and afterwards a teacher.

Portrait of Mrs Holbery of West Retford and her brother John Smith of Hayton. Taken in 1860. (Image: Bassetlaw Museum)

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"Mr Edward Watson was one of the superintendents, and the others whom I well knew were Mr George Smedley, and Mr Geo. Shillito. Mr James Atkinson, Union-street, was the painstaking secretary of the school. He played the tenor flute in the choir.

"Mr Henry Sutton, who died in the Sloswick Hospital, was the leader upon the flute. Mr Thomas Bowskill played the bass viol.

"I also assisted - sometimes on the flute and sometimes on the violin. Mr Joseph Garratt, a market gardener, recited the hymns two lines at a time, and earlier, I remember, this was done by Mr Jonas Foster, painter and decorator, of Moorgate."